Targeted Radiotherapy as Effective as Standard Radiotherapy without Long-Term Side Effects

Breast cancer patients can now be treated without its unpleasant effects such as disfigurement and other long term side effects. A study has found targeted radiotherapy which has the same effect as treating the whole breast.

Focusing radiotherapy within the tumor site after a surgery produces same results as treating the whole breast. This process has fewer long-term side effects, according to a Daily Mail article.

A standard radiotherapy is used after a breast tumor removal operation and is given to those who are at low risk of having the cancer back. However, it causes changes in the breast's appearance leading to psychological distress.

The Cancer Research UK funded the study that examined more than 2,000 women, 50 years old and above, who had early breast cancer and a low risk of it returning. They split them into three groups after a surgery that removed their tumors but not the breast.

The first group received the full dose standard radiotherapy to their whole breast. The second group had the full dose of radiotherapy but only where the tumor had been and lower dose to the rest of the breast, and the third group had full dose where the tumor had been but no radiotherapy was given elsewhere in the breast.

After five years of treatment, the researchers found only one percent or fewer women in each group had their cancer back on their breasts. The study was led by The Institute of Cancer Research, London.

"We hope that these important results will contribute to a change in practice in the very near future," said Prof. Judith Bliss, study co-leader. "The simple radiotherapy techniques used in this trial can be carried out on standard radiotherapy machines across the UK, so widespread implementation would be relatively straightforward."

Prof. Arnie Purushotham, senior clinical adviser at Cancer Research UK , said that the study could result to an important change to how to treat breast cancer, Mirror reported.

"If this changes practice it could prevent many women having lasting effects from their treatment and reduce the discomfort and emotional stress women have from these side effects," she added.